contamination. about 1300 acres of that had been open for habitation. the rest of the area had been opened as a refuge for hiking and biking and possibly hunting. there is a lot of homebuilding and shopping malls and all in all sorts of things going on out there. ..

nick adams explains why he thinks this country is exceptional. this is 45 minutes. [applause] [applause] thank you. thank you. thank you dianne, and thank you, ladies and gentlemen, of austin. madam chairwoman, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, it's wonderful to be here in the city of austin in the great state of texas. [applause] >> and it's great to be here among so many patriots and friends, and i'm going to give a special shoutout to a couple of very special friends, steve

holt, there he is. that's him. the executive director of the texas state rifle association, the state branch of the nra. he helps me, counsels me, looks after me. please give him an extraordinary welcome. [applause] >> and kay fuhrman, a lady with a heart so grand i'm surprised it fits in her body. she is dynamic, philanthropic, inspirational, and i'm so happy she is able to be here with me today and we reacquaint three years after first meeting. boy, does she have a story. that's one incredible lady right there. god bless you, kay. [applause] >> my new friends, the graham family, also here today. their hospitality has been faultless and their generosity

abundant. and how about diane folton, tireless, true, red, white, and blue. i want to thank c-span tv for being here today, and broadcasting this event nationally. and i want to thank the historic austin country club and their staff, our gracious hosts here today. they say there are two types of people in this world. those that are texans and those that wish they were texans. and i'm pleased to tell you i certainly fit in the latter category. i'll trade my broad and indecipherable australian accent for your distinctive and equally indecipherable texan drawl any day of the week, y'all just let

me know now, i reckon there's a deal to be done. i love texas. it's the repository of success. sheltered in the strong arms of christianity. schools in common faiths. and sequestered in time. it's where the cancer of socialism vainly struggles, where its dangerous tumor cannot metastasize, where retrograde forces remain moribund and noxious weeds cannot take root. where men are men, and women are women. where confidence and swagger never abscondses. it is a place truly unlike any

other. the archetype of america, the quinn tess sense of exceptionalism, it is truly the finest quality anywhere on earth. it serves as the beacon of the west, the rampart of america, the retirement plan for any right-thinking free man. i join with you today, ladies and gentlemen, on my ninth visit to these united states of america, the most daring of human experiments. even today, it is a nation of incomparable strength, unparalleled wealth, unrivaled innovations, and immeasurable goodness. all of coe aless, amalgamate to produce the most supreme culture

imaginable. it is the culture that captured the hearts and the mind of this australian. it is the idea that shapes his politics and his personality. it is the ideal which makes you feel a flush of pateot county resentment everytime he hears criticism of a nation to which he doesn't belong. it taught him everything and anything is possible. it's the nation that embraced him when his own shunned him. this is the land of the possible. the land in which men and women are born equal. and given opportunity through liberty. where liberty is guaranteed, but outcomes are not. it is the same land that unites the californian child, the

tennessean teenager, the floridian father, the maryland mother, and the wyoming worker, where they bond under one flag, to dream of a better life, where they are free to pursue their own happiness, free to risk without the consequences associated with the failure. free to speak their mind without the retribution of fellow citizens acting as a lynch mob, unaccustomed and uncomfortable with those prepared to say what they think, particularly if they don't agree with them. free to reap the reward of boldness and maybe success, without suffering the debilitating envy and unending sniping of those incapable of unwilling to secure similar compensation. it is the nation of kay fuhrman, the nation of philanthropy, a citizenry of unequaled

generosity. a people with a libertarian spirit and a bounce-back mentality, a population that wears it's motions on its sleeves, and speaks openly of god. a country more dedicated than any other to human achievement and discovery. the land of the free, the home of the brave. it is the nation an idea that men stand up for, fight for, and ultimately lay down their life for. it is the passion of this country that sees its young men and women lose limbs and spill blood so that others they have never even met before, can experience the glory of freedom. the mere mention of america

freezes the sweat and chills the bones of men with totalitarian amibitions coursing through their veins. so, it has been; so it must continue to be. you might be wondering why a nonamerican speaks with such reverence for america. why a foreigner has dedicated much of his short life to the study and support of this country. these are fair questions. the answer to them is simple. with america goes the world. when this nation, this idea, is strong, the world is strong. when this nation suffers, the world suffers with it.

keeping america strong is the greatest moral imperative of our time. for americans and nonamericans alike. for blacks and whites and hispanics and asians and europeans forks the gay, disabled, elderly, under privileged and unhappy. for men, women and children of all ages, everywhere and anywhere. for this land they call america transcends borders. it is an idea. an idea of elegance that electrifies men and women who desire opportunity and require freedom. it is an idea egregious only to those men that aspire to tyranny

or attachment to mediocrity and substitute god for government. without america as we know it, the world would be unfree. at the mercy of socialism, and radical islam. only america stands in the way. mine is a story possible only here in this country. only in america. in three short years, the achievement you recognized me for today already eclipsed those accrued in the first 25 years of my life. born to hard-working parents in australia, both with european roots, they gave me every opportunity imaginable. i was a dream child. start out there.

today with the marvels of technology, designed by innovative americans, they get to watch this in australia. they taught me to dream. they taught me to never give up. my father instilled in me to never fear any man or have any master, except god. my mother instilled in me the need to care and protect those weaker than i. they taught me the virtue of confidence, even at the expense of the perception of arrogance. they taught me to make the most of every second of life. and i'm proud to say that i've done that. as much as humanly possible. i live in australia. and travel to america frequently. if i could move here tomorrow i would. it may sound strange, but i have

often felt as if i were an american trapped in an australian body. [laughter] >> such is my empathy and appreciation of american culture that the culture of optimism, support, and boldness. don't get me wrong, i love my country very dearly. and am prepared to pay the ultimate sacrifice for it. i owe almost all that i am to australia. it is a magnificent country, and perhaps the greatest for those that wish to leave content lives and color between the lines with little appetite for risk or attempting to be improbable.

while great people, australians can often be harsh on their young. they're successful and they're outspoken. when i offered to donate copies of my first book that was published to the library of my university, which happened to be the largest library in the southern hemisphere, and i was declined, it hurt me very deeply. when i wasn't asked back, once in eight and a half years, to my old high school, after having been elected to the local gotching authority, it wounded me. when i submitted opinion piece after opinion piece for media publication and couldn't get a single break, it was tough. for years, these matters festered and disappointed. but that's just the way my country is. that's australia.

i have learned to accept it. but you want to know something? today, today, my books sit on the shelf of the u.s. library of congress. the largest library in the world. today -- [applause] -- today high schools right across this nation, from east to west, from north to south, fill my e-mail inbox with speaking requests. today my message of inspiration is being broadcast into the living rooms of over 100 million households, right across the continental united states. that's what happens when you put your mind to something. that's what happens when your audience is open and

disinterested in reputation or conformity, and committed to individualism and the act of being bold. today the idealized american can count his true friends on just one hand. uncompromising and simplistic convictions such as the belief in good and evil, in righteousness and wickedness, make him a marked man. clarity is the enemy of the highly sensitized and the meek. silence even disagreement is their friend. to them your and my, our contributions are not only unwelcome, they're intemperate, irritable, and inflammatory. from the prairies of able to the

river banks of missouri to right across the length and breadth of this nation there is rightfully no virtue seen in conformity. from an early age, the american child is instructed to characterize submission unaccompanied by struggle as shameful. the only uniform america wears is individuality. for americans understand a simple arithmetic that where group, think delivers mediocrity and drudgery, individualism drives innovation and creativity. ladies and gentlemen, we find ourselves today in a culture war. it is waged by men and women who wish to change the way we think, the way we speak, the way we interact, and the way we live our lives.

they do it to our schools, to our universities, and through our media. it is a war that pits women against men. ethic minorities against their new homeland. the struggling against the successful. it is the same war that makes the white middle class educated american guy, working 70 hours a week, week in, week out, year in, year out, who has accomplished something in his life, feel as if he is resented. it's a war that says our christian values have no place in this world. it is a wall that says no culture is better than any other. no one set of values, no one model worth aspiring to. it is a war that encourages, fosters, harbors, and empowers, radical islam. it is a war whose casualty will

ultimately be the western world. mark my words. our war is with these people as much as it is with those whose extremism authored the events of september 11th. america is the one hope for the world. the only shield. the only hedge of protection. the one bloodline that we must make sure together no enemy can cross. it has the model. it has the values. it has the culture. it has the freedom, and it has the constitution. see, america is a conservative idea in a sea of socialism. american values are conservative values. america favors the individual to

the collective. patriotism to radical multiculturalism. israel to palestine, christianity to government. capitalism to market intervention and where the rest of the world considers only government employees worthy of being armed, america was founded on precisely the opposite premise. and it is these same conservative values, these same conservative founding principles, that will see you and the world through this storm. i know you are hurting. and i know you are falling behind your own potential. the well-oiled has become sluggish. organized in thought has turned to slovenly.

optimism has shifted to survival. debt is historic. the rise of china concerning. the attacks on your embassies disconcerting. exceptional feels like you're evening out. you've got the piano of all pianos on your back, and right now, even hope seems fruitless. i can tell you one thing. my country in my country, in others, everyone has written you off. they say we already live in a post-american world. but america's time has expired. that it's done. it has no more life to breathe. that it's gone, it's finished. it's what the international media tells us. what our politics tell us. what the cab driver will tell

you. it's time, they say to prepare and re-align for a world where america doesn't count. it's time to get with the chinese, they say. it's time to change the way that we see the world. and everytime i hear these themes, i think, just you wait. [applause] >> just you wait until the americans respond to that timeless creed that says, come and take it. just you wait until the american clicks into gear. just you wait until they recapture their mojo. just you wait until they elect a new president, one that doesn't aspire to a european model

disintegrating before our very eyes. just you wait until they step out of their pickup trucks and their -- with their shoulders back, their head held high, and they declare, i'm coming back and i'm coming back better and bigger than before. just you wait. [applause] i'll tell you this. there are so many wonderful americans doing so many great things, you are only ever five minutes away from a renaissance. despair, my friends, is not only unattractive, it's unamerican.

in this country, more than any other, you get to choose the songs of your nation, and the songs of your life. get your song back. put it in your heart as it is in mine, and get your mojo working again. you cannot prepare for defeat and expect to live in victory. shake it off and step up. through adversity comes great opportunity. the information age that saw this nation lead the world in a way so remarkable, was led by giants such as general electric, hewlett-packard, ibm, and microsoft. all of which originated in past

times. they didn't just hunker down. they didn't just hang on. they didn't just survive. they went out there and they conquered that storm. and that's what you have to do. anything is possible. if you believe and if you have feather. -- if you have faith. they cannot uproot you they cannot break you. they cannot topple you. believe you are called. believe you are chosen. believe you are equipped. believe you can. because you can. you've done it before and you will do it again. listen to this creed. do not choose to be a common man. it is your right to be uncommon. if you can seek opportunity and not security, be there to take

the calculated risk to dream and build, to fail and to succeed, refuse to barter incentive for dull, prefer the challenge office life to guarantee of security. the thrill of fulfillment to the state of calm utopia. do not trade freedom for ben never -- ben never sense, nor your dignity for a handout. don't cower before any master save your god. it's your heritage to stand erect, proud, and unafraid. think and act for yourself, enjoy the benefits of your creation and face the world boldly and declare, i am a free american. thank you, ladies and gentlemen. god bless you, and god bless the united states of america!

[applause] >> thank you very much. thank you very much. >> ladies and gentlemen, i'll be more than happy to take any questions that you may have. if you see kim or diane and let them know you'd like to ask a question, i'd be more than happy to answer that question as best as i can. if you could just do me the courtesy of saying your name and where you live, i'd appreciate that very much. >> no questions? >> i said it all, didn't i? [applause] >> i believe this lady has a

question. >> i'm sharon barkley and i live -- [inaudible] >> i have been to 144 countries, and i was just with some australians. >> lucky you. >> in borneo and they told me they live and breathe america. that's what they told me. >> we do live and breathe america. >> i had no idea. and then i was dumb founded, and they also said they loved obama. >> well, i don't. i don't. >> so, with those comments, it makes me wonder how you at 28 love us so much. >> it's a great question -- >> i love australia, by the way. i've been there three times

about i love this country more. >> thank you very much for your question. it is a very good question. unfortunately, there are a lot of people in australia and right around the world that consider president barack obama to be a good president. consider him to be healthy for the state of the american nation. i profoundly disagree. i believe that america is an exceptional nation and it deserves an exceptional president. and my greatest issue with president obama was his interview with a reporter where he was directly asked whether or not he believed in american exceptionalism. and his response was rather telling. he said, yes, i believe in american exceptionalism. much like a brit might believe in british exceptionalism and a

greek might believe in greek exceptionalism. well, ladies and gentlemen, that there can only be one exceptional, and it would appear that with that statement and with his actions and the actions of the administration, they have fully subscribed to the doctrine of relativism. that there is no one thing superior to any other. that we shouldn't call or consider one way better than another. and not only die -- do i think that is week, i think he is wrong and he is not the sign of a nation that has done so much for the world and is the model to which every nation should and must aspire. [applause]

>> hi. thank you so much for being here. my name is michelle rauls and i have a 24-year-old son who is interested in politics. i also worked in the student housing industry for the past 28 years, each year i see our young people become modify disinterested and disenfranchised with politics. i admire you so much for being -- you're 28 and obviously you're very passionate about our country and very passionate about politics. what would you say to our younger generation 0, college, age children that do seem disinterested in america and lost their desire for politics, whether it be democrat or republican. of course we hope republican. what would you say to those young kid today to get them interested and involved in america and rebuilding our nation again. >> well, thank you, michelle, for that question and thank you for those kind words. it is so incredibly important

that the next generation of americans understand what is at stake in the world. it is so important that the next generation of americans understand the awesome responsibility that is going to be bequeathed to them. they are going to be the owners of a nation that has so much to offer the world, that can move the world in any direction, that can have the most amazing impact on people's lives, and once they understand the magnitude of that responsibility, that's when really we start to have that generation of americans knowing what needs to be done. the next generation of americans need to be told the truth. and that is that america has

everything to be proud of and nothing to be ashamed of. that it us the most innovative, individualistic, optimistic, patriotic, religious, and libertarian nation in the history of the world. and if it is to remain the super power of the world, then it needs to retain each of those aspects that truly make it exceptional. they need to hear something other than what they hear in their classrooms. they need to hear something other than what they hear when they to to their tutorials at universities. they need to hear the truth. and the truth has been the casualty of the awful acts of people that have as their objective, as their number one chief goal, to weaken america,

because if they weaken america, then that's it. they've got what they need. and that's why it is just so imperative that the young people, the people that are going to be bequeathed this nation, know what is at stake and know what needs to be done, and know that it -- they had and the country had the most incredible founding imaginable, and all they need to do to keep their country great, to keep their country number one, is exercise fidelity to that founding. exercise fidelity to the visions of those founders. exercise fidelity to those documents, like the constitution. like the declaration of independence. because that is where america's true genius exists.

[applause] >> i'm karla robinson from drooping springs. i have a personal question to you. do you find it a bit odd that america, the'm consider republic of the united states, has elected a president who has so immersed in communism from his grandparents, his mother, his father, his mentor, his surrounding aides aides and help mates? that's a big question to me how people can support someone with such a strong communist connection. thank you. [applause] >> karla, thank you for that question. i think it's a question that all of us want to know the answer to. and that's people right around the world that have america's

best interests at heart. i must confess that in 2008 when president obama was elected, i had never been to america. and it's true that i came to hang out with conservative people, when i come here. but my feeling is, having been to almost half of the states in this country -- and i dedoo -- i do know there are 50 -- [applause] -- my feeling is that the center of political gravity in america is much further to the right than it is anywhere else in the world, which makes president obama's election even more bizarre. the only possible information that i can offer you is having read these -- his books-wanting to get to know who the president of the greatest country in the

world was, having read his books, he makes himself sound like a republican. he makes himself sound like a true american. he very cleverly, through the use of language, through his stories, portrays this idea that he really is just a regular guy, and that he is a bill clinton. and he is not a bill clinton. he is not a bill clinton. he is a long way from a bill clinton. so, i think america is also a very divided place. i also came -- tend to spend a lot of anytime red states because they tend to be my favorite places to be. but i know that there are strongholds, particularly in major cities and places like that, where president obama has

an enormous amount of support. so, i think that i'd like to be able to say that we can notch that down as a grand error, that came on the back of a tumultuous time where america was in turmoil, where people were looking for someone that represented hope, and through his abilities and through his message, he was able to sell himself as something that he clearly was not. that's the best i can offer you. i'm sorry. [applause] >> i have one question from someone who didn't want to ask. >> sure. >> then when we get through i wanted to remind everyone that books are for sale over here that he has written because we have to wind this up. i forgot to announce that this

is c-span 2, book if you want to goggle it, they do have a schedule so that you'll know when this is on. its usually shown on the weekends. so here's the question: the question is how can our nation survive with a journalistically challenged press dedicated to protecting the election chances of a president and political party intent on destroying our country. >> that wasn't jane graham, was it in i got the same question this morning. it's a question that all of us have on our list, and it's tough. it's really tough. the media in america, the media in australia, the media around the western world is so far to the left it ain't funny. it's lost objectivity. it's lost its luster.

it's lost its truth, and that is something that is profoundly disturbing. profoundly disturbing and there's really only one way to deal with that, and that is to call them out on it. every single time that they do it. these journalists are going to university, they're going to college, and i doubt many of them would be aggies or from the university of texas here in austin, but there are lots of universities where these journalists are going to, and they're being educated by socialists. they're being educated by people, these very people that we have been speaking about, that want to do harm to america, that don't see this exceptionalism of america. that want america to go down a left path. that can't stand israel.

and so we really need to understand where these journalists are coming from, and then we can understand why it is they do what they do, and they've do what they do because they are being brainwashed. they're indock -- indoctrinated, and that's a very difficult thing to reverse the tide on. we need to encourage the next generation of americans that journalism is a worthy cause; that they should really look into careers in the media. we need to have more conservatives in the media. there's no doubt about it. i love fox news but there's only so much of fox news you can watch. we want to have five or six fox news. fair and balanced. that's what we want. and unfortunately the mainstream media in your country and my country and right around the world, is nowhere near fair and

balanced. so let's get a bit of balance into it. [applause] >> thank you, nick. as most of you here know, we donate a book to a local elementary school on behalf of our speaker every month. so this month we're doing those rebels john and tom, we thought would be a good one. we'll be donating is in your name to a local school. >> that's very kind of you. >> thank you, ladies and gentlemen. [applause] >> the year was 1981 or 1982,

and i was living in hong kong where i was working for the asian wall street journal. i was the op-ed editor, and one day a submission crossed my desk, written by an it tall journal -- italian journalist who was living in peking and he had secured a visa to go to pyongyang and had written article for his publication about it, and sent his extrapolation to me hoping the asian wall street journal would publish it. of course we did, and i was really blown away by it. it was completely eye-opening to me, especially his description of the mass public worship of kim il-sung who was then the leader of north korea. it was like reading a chapter from 1984. george orwell's vision had come to life a few years earlier in the democratic people's'm of

korea. as the years went by i couldn't get the closing line of the italian journalists article out of my head. it read: when i got off the plane in peking, i kissed the ground, happy to be back in a free country. a free country, chinain' 1981 in i'd been there i knew china wasn't free. was it really possible there could be a place that was -- that north korea could be worse? 30 years later, we know the answer to that question. north korea is the world's most repressive state. its people or the slave to the kim family regime which controls every aspect of their lives. even whether they get to eat. religion is banned. there is no rule of law. and perceived political infractions are met with harsh punishment. punishment, i should add, that

it onmeeted out to three generations of a family. a political offender knows when he goes to prison, his parents and his children will probably go with him. there are probably about 200,000 north koreans today in the gulag, and more than a million, perhaps as high as two million, have already died there. the reason we know all of this, and much, much morning is thanks to the testimonies of north koreans who have escaped. these are the people i write about in my book. this knowledge comes to us despite the best efforts of the kim family regime to keep it secret. ever since the end of the korean war, north korea has been sealed off from the world's eyes. the kim family regime has pursued an isolationist policy and it maintains an iron grip on information. access to which is very strictly

controlled. to give just one example, every radio must be registered with the government. and its dial must be fixed to the government-run radio station. to enforce this rule, security police equipped with scanners cruise neighborhoods, trying to identify households where residents have tinkered with the radios and are tuning in to banned foreign radio broadcasts. surveys of north koreans hiding in china show that a high percentage of them listened to foreign radio broadcasts in north korea, in defiance of the rule, and their motivation to leave was in fact in part influenced by what they heard on those foreign radio broadcasts. people are hungry for information about the outside world. north koreans who escaped must first go to china. they can't go south to south korea, strange as it may seem,

because the demilitarized zone that runs along the 38th 38th parallel is by its name the most militarized boredder in the world and is impossible to get across unless you're a soldier who has been shown the safe route. and only a few people make it out of north korea by going across the dmz. instead they go to china, and in china the north korean usually finds he has exchanged one circle of hell for another. china's policy is to track down the north koreans in their country, arrest them and send them back to north korea. where they face imprisonment or worse for the so-called crime of leaving their country. this policy, this chinese policy, is both immoral and it's in contravention of china's obligations under international treaties it has signed.

nevertheless, some of the north koreans koreans who are hiding in champion, decide to risk a second escape. out of china to south korea. no one can accomplish this feat on his own. some people can get out of north korea on their own and the hands of the rescuers really reaches inside north korea itself. but if somebody wants to get out of china they need help. the distances are too great and the challenges are too high for a north korean to do it on his own. this is where the new underground railroad comes in. like the original underground railroad in the precivil war american south, the new underground railroad is a network of safe houses and secret routes across china. the operators are both human traffickers who are in it for the money, and christians whose religious beliefs impel them to help the north korean brothers and sisters. thanksthanksthanks to the underd

railroad which has been operating for 12 years, an increasing number of north koreans are reaching safety in the south and few other countries. the explosion in the number of north koreans who have gotten out in recent years is very striking. south korea keeps track of the north koreans who reach south korea, and let me sheriff you a couple of the numbers. in 1990, only nine north koreans were able to reach south korea. last year, 2,700 7 north koreans reached safety in the south. so, the people who get out now have formed a large -- there are enough of them they are educating us about the truth of life in north korea. and there have been several books published about life in north korea, and we now have a

much better picture of what the truth of the existence is there. but the north korean refugees are performing a second equally important function. i do believe a more important. they're helping to open up their own information-starved homeland. just as the world now knows more about north korea, north koreans now know far more about the world. this, too, is thanks to the efforts of north koreans who escape in how do they do that? think a minute. any immigrant who goes to a new country, what's the first thing he wants to do? he wants to let his family back home know that he is okay. and tell them about his new life. but for a north korean who wants to do that it's next to impossible. you can't make a phone call to north korea. you can't send an e-mail or text-message or facebook, and you can't even mail a letter. so, the exiles have created a

black market in information. they hire chinese couriers to cross the border and deliver messages, or sometimes they deliver chinese cell phones to a north korean relative, tell the relative to good -- go to an area near the border on a certain day, certain hour, turn on the phone and receive a phone call from their relative who has escaped to a different country. in south korea, and north korean exiles have formed organizations whose purpose is to get information into north korea. to give just one example, there are four radio stations run by north korean ex-aisles that broadcast dadely to north korea. the mantra of the kim family regime that north coreways the greatest, most props produce nation on earth and the north korean people are the happiest,

is being exposed. >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. >> you're watching book tv and we're on location in leaves at the freedom fest conference. and one of the speakers here is senator ran paul, republican of kentucky, and the author of this book, the tea party goes to washington. senator paul, this came out when you were elected in 2010. came out in 2011. how would you assess the tea party today and its innuisance in washington? >> when we started we were equal parts chaz tieing to both parties. we were unhappy for the republicans who voted for bank bailouts and we were unhappy with obama cair, and we had the supreme court recalling, we're still unhappy and the tea matter may be rejuvenated by its pop

signifies. when they supreme court didn't strike it down you'll see a resurgence of the tea party trying to have an influence who wins the election. >> when the tea party first started in 2006-2007, were you even thinking about running for office at that point? >> no. in fact i went to maybe the very first tea party in 2007, december 16, 2007 in boston. they called it a re-enactment of the boston tea party and also the time my dad's campaign was starting to hit national waves, and then it kind of grew, and i went to other tea parties and the first tea party i went to in kentucky was in 2009, and senator bunting was talking about not running, and so i showed up at the tea party way. at my son's little league baseball game and i thought i'd go down to the square and there would be 20 people there who are mad about big government, and i showed up there and there were nearly a thousand people there and that's when i knew something big was going on. >> at that point did you start

thinking about electoral office? >> no. i was sort of toying with the fact that they were talking about senator bunting not running so we started talking to reporters, if he doesn't run, i might. but showing up and seeing that big rally said there were enough people like myself -- i tell people i'd sit at home, watch the news, get unhappy, throw things at my tv and curse and go about my daily business, but everybody else is doing this. everybody was becoming unhappy, ask the debt was exploding and the republicans weren't doing the right thing, either. so, yeah, that's when i started thinking about it. >> a lot of the book, "the tea party goes to washington" is about the 2010 campaign and the misrepresentations who you are. what are some of those examples. >> the tea party for one, a lot of people characterize as not being a movement. some rich guy inside new york were funding the tea party and that's all the tea party was. i never met any rich guys from

new york when i was part of the tea party. i never -- really the tea party was so decentralized it was city by cities. there's sometimes two tea parties in one town and they don't communicate with each other. there's no top down. this was bottom-up movement and a movement that really chastised both parties. we were unhappy -- a lot of us were very unhappy with republicans, when president bush said, to save the free market, i had to give up on the free market. i had to give up on capitalism. that disturbed a lot of souse we were unhappy with republicans and democrats and really felt like we needed something different. >> you write in here that in addition to being called a tea partyer or a constitutional conservative, i've also been called a goldwater conservative by supporters and critics. it is both accurate and an honor to be described as such. >> when i got started i re-read the conscience of the conservative, and interestingly it was actually first published

in kentucky, right outside of louisville, and i went and met the publisher and he gave me an original coach and i re-read it. >> and when you think of barry goldwater and think of conservatives and libertarians, is there a difference between a conservative and will be libertarian. >> people don't know what conservative is. george w. bush ran as a conservative but doubled the debt and many of us consider him a prove flag great spender himself, and we were upset with obama for making it worse. so many people call themselves libertarian to destination themselves with a true belief. >> now after a couple of years

of being in the u.s. senate, what you change in here, if anything, and has your mind -- your thinking changed at all? >> i would say that going up there, i feel that i -- i understand more now how much there is an impasse, we're having trouble getting things done. what i don't still understand, even though i am in washington, i've tried to take ideas that many democrats have put forward and say we have to do but it can't get any democrats to talk to me. the media narrative is we won't talk to them. have had several appointments disdemocratic senators to work on social security reform. social security can be saved in perpetuity if we gradually raise the age. i can't get democrats to discuss the possibility of entitlement reform. >> what about your own party, the republican party? >> half and half. some don't want to talk about it, either, and i'm equally critical of my matter in the sense that all 47 u.s. senators

on the republican side are for a balanced budget amendment but then when we go to cut $7 million from the sugar sub days we louse the republicans with the suing -- sugar sub di. our annual deficit under a trillion so if you want to cut -- that's 147,000 cuts and we can't do it at once. that discourages me and part of the problem in washington, we can't cut pennies, much less the billions that have to be cut. >> you have a new book. >> called government bullies and we look at different ways people are being imprisoned in america for regulatory crime. we're not talking about murder, rape, stealing. we're talking about people who put dirt on their own property. these are wetland violations. some of these came out of the first george bush, unfortunately, and we think that you shouldn't be putting people in jail for regulatory crime. in the old days, when you put

people in jail there was a difference between criminal law and tort law in criminal law you were supposed to have what was called mens rea or intent. you intended to kill somebody. if you accidentally hit someone on your bicycle, that wasn't murder. there's a man in jail from southern mississippi for ten years, without parole, for putting clean fill dirt on a low area of his land. sometimes it's removing dirt from one part of your land to another part of your land. we've gone crazy on this, and some of it was well-intend at the beginning. the clean water act says you can't dump pollutants in the waters of the u.s. improve believe in that. no chemical company should be allowed to dump chemicals in the iowa river but putting dirt in your own land is not the same. >> are these some of the issues you have dealt with in the last couple of years. >> we have brought these people up. i brought the family from idaho. they were being assessed a $5,000 a day fine and told they

can't build on their land and had to make it like they used to be and there's no water touching their land. never any rain water on the land. the government says look at the web site, and they did and it's not there. and they said the web site is not perfect. we brought a family raising bunnies. they were fined $90,000 for raising bunny with the wrong license. ...

>> conservativeness, like myself, they will have to cut back and not waste. the pentagon says they will be too big to be audited. that is a downfall. they need to be audited when i spend $700 billion a year. there are $124 billion in the budget unaccounted for. we have to do something about that. >> how do you foresee the debt ceiling and the sequestration debate? >> i did not vote for the last debt ceiling raised. only we have a balanced budget amendment. some people say we will never do that, that is too hard-core. but you need to be hard-core. we have exceeded the statutory

caps a dozen times. they exceeded caps from last august and say you're not supposed to spend more than this amount of dollars. they just deem it to be okay. eighty of them, 80 out of 100 say they don't care what the rules are. there's a rule in the senate that says you have to have a bill online for 40 hours. but it is at least someone at, just last week they put one up for 12 hours. and i said it had not been up for 40 hours. and they said, so what, we don't care portables are. we don't even follow our own rules. that is why the american people are so unhappy postmark we are talking senator rand paul. his book, his first book, "the tea party goes to washington." senator, one of your first issues is where the name came from, your name. are you named after anyone?

>> i get that question. my wife actually shorten my name. i was randy growing up, my former name is randall. although i am a big fan of the author rand. my dad is a fan. he gave me the books for christmas when i was 17. when my wife said you need to be rand not read your randall and more, until he was a big deal but since then i've had a question a lot. >> you were an ophthalmologist. would you go to medical school? >> i did a year general surgery in atlanta and then i did my general rather than residency.

>> you practice all? >> the senate won't let me do it for money, so i do it for charity. i do some charitable surgeries. it is one of those crazy rules. if you are worth $100 million and you are a senator, there is no limit to what passive the income you can make, but you can make zero earned income. i'm not allowed to do any work outside of the senate, but i still do charity work and i do miss medicine. i thought that when i ran, my dad didn't let him practice on. there were some limits, but in the senate, i'm not allowed to practice at all. i have asked them to change the rules, but they are not very interested in helping me. >> who is on the back cover of this book? >> that is my wife. that is one my favorite pictures. it is sort of an animated toes. she helped with the book and also a lot allowing me to do the campaign and run for office. >> when she think about being a senator's wife? >> well, she wasn't too excited about the whole process of me running. and it was difficult at times.

there are times when you are attacked by your opponent, your character is assassinated. one of the things we talked about during the campaign, right before the election date accused me of something about my religion or college or is it not and she hadn't made any comments. she came out on our anniversary and said do not mess with my man. the rest is history. >> what is your enthusiasm level for the mitt romney campaign? >> well, i have endorsed him, and i've said all along that i will endorse a republican nominee. it doesn't mean that i will sit passively and not be critical if i disagree. not everyone agrees. i don't agree with everything with every republican. i try to be polite about it. but a week or two after my endorsement, i did mention that i was concerned that he had said that he could go to war with iran without any congressional authority. that bothers me. that's a big issue for me.

it separates me from other republicans. but i don't think that we should go to war with one person's authority. the constitution intended that that power be separated. madison said specifically we tested that power in the legislature because executives are so prone to war, that we wanted to divide the power up. i am very concerned about getting a new war with just being in a decade of two different wars. i will do everything i can to make sure there is a debate in the u.s. senate and the congress should that be something that people want to do again. >> and your endorsement of mitt romney cause any familial strife >> no, some of my death dad's supporters were not too happy, but my dad and i have always gotten along. there are still some people who love my dad so much that still want him to win. the numbers are done. supporters are not ready to admit that the numbers are sufficient.

>> your father's political philosophy is well known. what percentage do you think you sheraton? >> overall, we both believe in very limited government. we believe in a very original interpretation of the constitution. there will be issues that even if you think you're coming from the same basis and foundation, we do disagree on things occasionally. but always very polite. it's to let me come home for thanksgiving. i get to set sit at the adult table most of the time. [applause] >> finally, once you're standing on the republican party? >> you know, i think i do okay. i try very hard not to insult people. i try to work both sides of the aisle and both sides of the republican party, the many different types of the republican party. there are times that you will agree with people and times will disagree people. even in the senate, i work with many people on the democratic side on issues of internet freedom. ron wyden is an open guy. we may not agree on some economic issues, but on libertarian issues, we see eye

to eye. issues trying to end the war in afghanistan. two republicans and i have signed letters encouraging the president to end the war in afghanistan. we won the war, we kill bin laden, we disrupted the terrorist base. but we still don't have enough money to keep trying to create nations. >> okay, we listen. we think about the fact that sometimes democrats you as the evil bogeyman. >> i think that means that you're being effective and you are allowing them to make it harder for you. but i think i am not easily identifiable. i don't believe an empty partisanship. i have wrote on air force one before, i have suggested that we bring home a check in the bill

to repatriate the corporate capital from overseas. the old pipelines were the ones that were exploding. i think sometimes i'm not as easily pigeonholed as a partisan republican. i'm proud of the fact that i do actually work with the other side. not in a way where give up my principles, but i find like-minded people who happen to be democrats. >> we are talking with senator rand paul, the author of this book, "the tea party goes to washington." he has a new book coming out. it is called government bullies. this is c-span2.

>> here is a look at some books are being published this week. the national correspondent for the atlantic and author of black hawk down, chronicles the hunt for osama bin laden in the finish, the killing of osama bin laden. journalists michael recounts world war ii and the beginning of the cold war in his book six months in 1945. and this author's great great grandfather writes about her grandfather in american phoenix. a man who turned disaster into destiny. a master of the mountains, thomas jefferson and his slaves, the author presents the findings of his work. in their earth, the search for finished when, watch for the

authors in the near future on booktv and on booktv.org. >> you're watching the tv on c-span2. we are on location in las vegas at freedomfest. we are joined now by author thomas woods, who is the author of the book, "rollback: repaling big government before the coming fiscal collapse." mr. woods, what is your premise and the main point you're trying to cross? >> only about 5% of the book deals with fiscal issues of the budget. i would rather jump out a window than read or write a book on us. but to set the stage, i am explaining that we are on a trajectory, left or right or democrat or republican, we all have to admit it can't be sustained. obviously, some very wrenching changes are coming. the rest of the book is geared towards revisiting some of the arguments by which we were sold the government. if it weren't for this program, we would have that -- and etc.

when we do have to cut back is not going to be the terrible catastrophe and nightmare scenario to the country -- the silver lining is that you cut back on so many things and we will give a lot more scope for entrepreneurship and freedom. >> what is one of the budget items that you could see being cut back? >> up here, with a book like this -- some assume that i am a right-winger. but i want to take the shift away from the poor people and so on. i am a libertarian. i want to pretty much abolish everything. you take the low hanging fruit first. the low hanging fruit is the pentagon. there is a time when i was a conservative and i thought that if you want to cut the pentagon budget, you must be some kind of commie that hates america. when you look closely at this, you have to understand that the

pentagon, the department of defense is the only department that is not subject to audit. that doesn't mean that they failed the audit -- look at all the things we have done. but they are not even subject to audit. what we have been figuring out this piece by piece, for example, since 9/11. nine years after 9/11. the pentagon budget went up. the increase was about $2 trillion during those years. $1 trillion went to the war. the other trillion dollars, nobody knows quite where winter. the air force has been scaled back. the navy has been scaled back. the army is increased marginally, but the budget was vastly increased. where did the money go? this is a crisis that we are enduring. it is going to have to require both liberals and conservatives to rethink some of their sacred cows and say that we can't afford to say that this is off the table. nothing is off the table.

particularly, the waste of time -- also, it's not just that they have thrown a lot of money out the window. it is the way they do it. there are two techniques that they use to get the taxpayers going. so we have political engineering. whereby once a program gets going, a missile program, a weapons program, it doesn't matter if the enemy it was made for no longer exists. it doesn't matter that the thing can really work as promised. so the prophets and the jobs it's been around. the other technique is vastly overpromising what it can do. you combine all these techniques and you get an extremely unresponsive system. and then you get conservatives

did say i don't believe anything they say. but when it comes to the pentagon from everything that they say is like holy scripture. this is just a recipe for bankruptcy. >> what is the niche of big government? the title of one of your chapters for a. >> i strike right at the heart of the platitude. which is government is there to provide indispensable services that we couldn't do without. that we can provide for ourselves. government is composed, by and large, public minded servants are looking out for the common good. this is more about the fairytale. will more accurately describes what we have. people are seeking to increase or at the very least, maintain their budgets and increase their budgets and authorities. they began -- maybe they are thinking in a way that is public

spirited. they have come to associate their department with the public good. but they are all thinking that we have to spend every last dollar that was appropriated. this mentality is everywhere. it is systemic. >> without government science funding, everyone would be an idiot. >> okay, that is one of my lines. i believe that for a long time. i was a free-market guy for a long time. but i would say -- let's not be extremists here. it's okay to have a free-market, but there are some things that the market can't have. obviously science is one of those. you cannot necessarily earn a profit. you can't always capture the profits from science because your competitor will grab your discovery and kernel the

prophets. therefore, there will be less science undertaken. this is a typical neoclassical model of how it works in a free-market and it will just not work. so i believe that. but it turns out that this is not the case at all. the experiment either confirms or did not confirm -- provisionally confirms or does not confirm your hypothesis. again, you start with basic science -- but it turns out that none of us actually describes how science is actually working. in practice, not our discovery is coming from people arbitrarily working in a laboratory. and oh, my goodness, i discovered steam engine. it developed out of people who said i need to adapt this to my

needs. do when the department of defense did a study, they said it turns out that there has been far more funding and the percentage of gdp by the private sector. by research foundations, amateur science, in the age before we had income and estate taxes. it is the opposite of what we've been. that so often, we just casually assume that things have to be the way they have always been.

>> what is your difference in your mind between a conservative and libertarian? >> this is a tricky one. the libertarian has one basic principle, which is nonaggression. you cannot initiate force against anybody else. i think a lot of people would agree with that. of course, we know it is wrong. but libertarians would do take that to the logical consequence, which is that you look at the things that government does, that involve initiation of violence to people -- people who themselves have not initiated violence. we would consider to be more legitimate. conservative is less -- i guess, ideological. the conservatives in the classical sounds like edmund burke is deliberately not systematic.

i say that not as an insult because they have good reasons for being not systematic. their view of it is that life is too complex to be producible by the libertarian principles or to be producible. we have to use experience, and we have to use our knowledge of the past and move cautiously. i speak with some sympathy. they would view the libertarian is a hopeless ideologue wants to force the whole world to conform to his one principle. but i guess my sympathy for the libertarian position is that least i can pin it down to that one principle. whereas, sometimes try to identify who is the real conservative, what is the real conservative position? like nailing jelly to the wall. >> you write that federal bankruptcy, in short, may turn out to be one of the best things that ever happened to america. we must does come i got in

trouble for saying that. [applause] >> i think that media does matter. , when i say that federal bankruptcy may be a good thing, it's the sense in which any bankruptcy is a good thing. the owners of the bankrupt firm are not happy about it. but the idea of bankruptcy, they take a failing firm and is off the assets and you see what good may come of it. sometimes bankruptcy is the best thing that ever happened to a friend. in the sense that right now we have interests that are so entrenched. but nothing -- it doesn't matter what candidate you vote for. candidate a or b, you'll never get those programs out of there until the text start balancing. i was talking about the java core, which is relatively small budget program from the 1960s that persisted.

giving people dropping in the nickel back into into the market and find jobs. but the fruits of it had been abysmal. about a third of the people don't even show up to the program. once you do, most of them never find work in their field or wind up in a job, and the program cost this costs this much does it cost to put a guy through harvard. so you would think this is some great thing. and i want them to say, look, if the program failed, why do we persist with a? i thought that was a beautiful and naïve question. why did it persist? well, it did because congressmen around the country helped to bring a lot of hopeful programs

wednesday. the one nobody ever asks is how many people went through those programs that would in that field. like in alabama when i looked for a number of years. i have a friend and economist did a study of all the job training programs. it is a shame that 1 dollar of my tax dollars goes to this. if you are in that bureaucracy, a whole lot more than 1 dollar, you're getting a lot of concentrated benefits. you are going to fight tooth and nail to keep those programs. that is why a clean slate needs to be what we need. >> we are at transport in las vegas. we are talking with author tom woods about his new book,

"rollback: repaling big government before the coming fiscal collapse." >> but that is another one of these topics, again, we are taught to not really think about, not to subject them to little scrutiny. that you have a question about the federal reserve, people who clearly are saying that it's okay. what does it do? what is it about? what i'm suggesting is that the fed is actually not the institution that when we spontaneously have these business cycles that have no explanation, but that comes to the restroom solves the problem. they typically intensifies the problem and what we need do is roll back the fed as well. the conventional wisdom surrounding the fed is dead

wrong. in fact, and this is going going to sound -- anonymous was to say this, but when you look at how many economists are directly or indirectly on the fence fed's payroll, it is like a giant cartel -- most economists don't even think like this this way. nobody's going to bite the hand that event. it is pushing these interest rates to be super low levels. and then telling people the fundamental of the housing market is that you should take out a adjustable-rate mortgage, interest mortgages, lending standards are robust. absolutely went right over their heads. meanwhile, the free market, which is blamed for the financial crisis, it was time to say, stop doing this.

don't do this. the free economy -- the redline, stop it. but when you are allen greenspan and the fed chairman, all you have is a hammer, which is lowering interest rates and doing so with the nail. we have rates up the 2001. instead of red light listening to people, stop speculating, letting interest rates go up to tell people to do something else. instead of the lights being read, everything was green. this is a problem caused by the fed. >> thomas woods, what are some of the other topics you have written about? >> a few years ago i had a book called meltdown.

it talked about what caused the financial crisis. it is pretty much the first book on the financial crisis that the bailouts. you have to understand that the whole world -- hurry up what looked like an insane lunatic on this, just give the public something other than the paul krugman explanation of what happened. again, talked about the federal reserve in this topic that is getting a lot of coverage these days. the austrian school of economics. what is this? light of their economists know that there was a financial crisis coming. were they using a ouija board? that they have a a crystal ball? how do they know? that is what that book is about. the first time c-span covered me was the politically incorrect guide to american history. my publisher forgot to tell me

that c-span was coming. [laughter] >> i get there, and the manager of the store says that c-span is setting up over there and i said, i'm sorry, what? and so i had to come up with in our talk spontaneously. i came to the conclusion that from now on, i should not script any of my talks. it was actually a turning point in my life thanks to you guys. >> what is your background? >> educationally, bachelors from harvard, phd from columbia in u.s. history. i have taught them i have been a senior fellow and now i run my own little educational thing called with liberty classroom.com. now that we are living in this information revolution, it is revolution that makes google look like a lazy bum. i keep very busy. >> the place where you live,

kansas? >> yes, i live in kansas. >> is it advantageous to live outside of some of the major cities of the u.s.? >> well, it could be. obviously, there are pros and cons. they are a lot of advantages living near new york city, we missed that. there are a lot of advantages to that. if we ever have a severe crisis, which i hope we don't, i'm not sure that large population centers is where someone would want to be. obviously, it would be really bad if the unsinkable happen. but if there was a really bad attack of one type or another, we don't live in a concentrated area. there are advantages. >> we have been talking with thomas woods jenner about his most recent book, "rollback: repaling big government before the coming fiscal collapse." booktv on location in las